Monday, April 30, 2012

Nominating New Hampshire Senator Kelly Ayotte for Vice President makes sense for Mitt Romney as far as satisfying his need for a Female Toady in the Second Slot. Ayotte is a smug ignorant twit of the First Rank with an annoyingly shrill voice, a veritable clone of Scary Kerry Healey with a bit more electoral luck in her DNA.
She might put New Hampshire's electoral three electoral votes in play, but how she'd play in Florida and Ohio and down South is an open question.
Badly...is how I'm guessing.
I suspect this whole thing is a campaign stunt to get the punditariat all exercised over the prospect of yet another female vice presidential candidate, I doubt Ayotte is in strong contention otherwise.

Sunday, April 29, 2012

railing against Scott Brown's blatant pension mongering in the National Guard, is likely a non starter.
Just as railing against George Bush Jr's farcical service in the Texas Air National Guard was a non starter...Just as Fearless-Fosdicking Bill Clinton's draft evasion went nowhere in the weary wicked end.
Don't kid yourselves though, this does not mean we have put aside veteran's status as a qualification for office, tell that to John Kerry and miserable bastards who produced those Purple Heart embossed band aids at the 2004 RNC if you don't believe me.
My point is, it is hard to belabor a republican about their service to the colors or lack thereof, they have a variety of defense mechanisms to cope with this, chief among them questioning the loyalty and patriotism of their antagonists ad infinitum.
But in Scott Brown's case Humble Elias will soldier on regardless, the issue is personal, I know a few too many disabled veterans with thin pensions and few prospects and the notion that Scott is about to take to the stump in his camies, Bird Colonel's Hat and nice fat pension clutched in his manicured hand is simply too galling for words.
I know the issue doesn't carry very far and I do not care one whit.

Friday, April 27, 2012

I admit a complicated mindset where Jeff is concerned, he is a terribly earnest wingnut and he routinely distorts the facts in a wild rush to sink his claws into some democrat he dislikes...on the other hand being Morrissey Blvd's pet freeper can't be a fun gig. Not when you can see how far and how high some of the ranters and blusterers at the Herald go.
That lot come in for cush radio and cable gigs and get all sorts of push on the Front Page, and there is Jeff moldering away on the Globe's op ed page manfully defending the Augusta National's "right" to exclude skirts-n-frails.
In all a disheartening experience.

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Well The Former Viceroy has finally bought, battered smarmed and libeled his way to the GOP Presidential Nomination.
Humble Elias has a few general observations based on years of Romney watching from within and without the Commonwealth:
Based on past performance, Romney generally favors a running mate that offers no great political or intellectual challenge to him running concurrently with a desire to make a grand somewhat empty gesture towards diversity and the unconventional.
This is exactly how Massachusetts ended up with the charmless and underwhelming Kerry Healey as our Lieutenant Governor.
Romney had to reach pretty far down in the GOP ranks to find Healey bypassing several better qualified women in the process.
It seems pretty axoimatic He'd love to do likewise and the same this time, but of course the shadow of the 2008 Palin nomination falls over that option.
So I'm doubting that he'll try for a gender switcheroo despite a pronounced preference for Yes Women and female toadies in his entourage.
He might try this with a Marco Rubio type, go for an ethnic change up in a critical state, but then Rubio is very new to the national scene and might end up being a sort of "Male Palin" a "Malin" so to speak.
There has also been talk of a Chris Christie nomination, which to me suggests just how much the GOP has degenerated into the party of regional resentment when a Former Governor of Massachusetts needs the incumbent Governor of New Jersey to put the Garden State in play this fall. It also illustrates Romney's lack of a firm electoral base within and without the GOP.
I just don't see Christie playing well on the campaign trail, he is every Florida retirees nightmarish blowhard Son in Law and to the rest of the South he looks acts and sounds like a omnivorous consumer of public funds.
There is also talk of Ohio's Senator Portman that seems like a safer choice in a region very much up for grabs. And as of last week Jeb Bush's name has gotten some play...Romney has always inexplicably prided himself on his influence with La Famiglia Arbusto who in turn have always treated him like a dimwitted show pony.
If I had to put money on it, Jeb Bush to win, Portman to place, Rubio to show...but that is a line up subject to change.

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

whose homes abut Lake Winnipesaukee....Mitt Romney is coming to New Hampshire to campaign, which probably means he'll wanna take time out to cruise the lake looking for voters to save from drowning.
***
Okay that was plain silly.
***
All kidding aside, props to the Tea Partei dominated New Hampshire State Legislature, they are responding to the recent spate of shootings and murders in the Granite State by looking for creative ways to restrict access to abortion.
Well now, see this from their perspective, if the state is gonna keep it's lax gun laws, then measures have to be taken to ensure the birth rate keeps pace with the murder rate.
***
Yeah I know...Humble Elias should be ashamed....

Monday, April 23, 2012

But Former GOP Presidential Candidate Jon Huntsman wants to run on the Third Partei Ticket so badly He Can Taste It.
But for some reason he just won't pull the trigger, perhaps the infrastructure isn't there, the fundraising too daunting...maybe his hair is still wet, who knows?
We as Humble Elias has said before, for all the discontent out therethat the punditariat continually flags, it doesn't seem like the right year for an insurgent third partei candidacy.
Its an intangible thing to be sure, seems like everyone bluster bravado and resentment has a legit means of expression.
Meanwhile, Huntsman's discontent is fast becoming the GOP's version of Joe Lieberman, someone who has little good to say about his own party at any given time.
However I doubt he will act out on any of this, there is a passive aggressive quality to Jon Huntsman that will in the end inhibit any action on his part.
However, Gary Johnson has bailed on the GOP entirely, and is seeking the Libertarian Party nomination...
And Buddy Roemer has got his thumb out as well.
None of these guys are gonna go anywhere electorally, if Gary Johnson hangs in there til November he won't register for even five percent of the vote...the energy just isn't there.

Nonetheless it is a bad primary process that breeds so many bolters, splitters and would be insurgents...Word to Mitt Romney dawg.

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Kissing the booted feet of everyone from Ronald Reagan to George Bush Jr, and what does Utah GOP Senator have to show for it?
He is being "primaried" by the local Tea Partei.
Yeah they've got some young miserable ideological robot to run against Orrin and his ever quivering jowls on the notion that there is not enough partisan rancor in Washington DC.
Well this simply illustrates the almighty self destructiveness of the Tea Partei, they will destroy the US Constitution to get at Barack Obama, failing that they will fall into impotent Viking berserker frenzy and go after a cowardly useless milksop like Orrin Hatch.
With a little effort the Tea Partei could easily bend Orrin Hatch to their will, the man is not noted for his political fortitude, but no, they are mad dog desperate to put the bite on someone, anyone....even a fellow conservative.
As nasty and hypocritical as the Tea Partei is, I'm beginning to think they are a bigger threat to the GOP than they are to the democrats.
Lets hope for once, Humble Elias is right.

Friday, April 20, 2012

Because despite a gimpy leg that compels him to hobble about on crutches, he is more than game to get up early in the morning put on a good suit and make his way down to South Boston where a certain big name local Insurance Company was hosting a meet-n-greet with several famous former Red Sox players.
This picture is time stamped 8:20am EST, 4-20-2012, Hizzoner is pushing seventy years of age, but if some Red Sox Magnificos are underfoot, then Tom wants in.
This is how he does it folks, George Washington Plunkett once called politics a "business like any other" and this is Tom Menino's business, schmoozing, gladhanding, making with the personal no matter how much time and a bum knee may gnaw at him.
You may dismiss this as an atavistic endeavor only if you truly believe that today's penchant for "brand management politics" and the candidacies of flickering holograms like Mitt Romney is ineffably superior to olde timey methods and tropes.

Thursday, April 19, 2012

Rocker Ted Nugent, whose falangist ranting at the NRA convention, is currently burning up the internet is a serious gun worshipper.
He owns a lot of guns and loves to make bloodcurdling threats backed up by the implied might of his personal arsenal.
Ted wants to scare liberals shitless, somehow that reaction gratifies his paranoid narcissistic soul.
Me personally, you can just tell by his rampantic nature of his rhetoric that Ted Nugent would audibly shit himself if he ever heard a shot fired in anger.
That arsenal of his is nothing but an expensive and deadly form of hoarding, his yellow strea will never ever permit him to use it against another sentient being, count on it.
That is how it is with some of these gun worshippers they need that arsenal to bolster their flagging decrepid sense of manhood.
On the other hand look at New Hampshire's newest cop-killer Cullen Mutrie the guy had one arsenal confiscated and was in the process of acculmulating a fresh cache of weapons when the police raided his home and the skinchy bastard got to live out his fantasy of shooting a Peace Officer.
My point is, that in our firearm saturated culture, you have to be very aware of the psychological state of your local gun worshipper...is he a charmless harmless coward like Ted Nugent or a public menace like Cullen Mutrie?
Because quite frankly given the sheer number of weapons in circulation out there, we are all gonna have to become good amateur profilers.

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

that Scott Brown routinely shakes down Wall Street for campaign cash...That he is openly pension-mongering with a panache unseen since the Empire Days of Billy Bulger....But if the Junior Senator takes money from the New York Yankees Organization, then, it is Katie-Bar-The-Door.

Well other than sort of being ironic, I can see this damaging Scott's appeal with suburban independent men.
Or some god-damned thing.
Hell, I'm still reeling from the prospect that an undistinguished officer in the National Guard's Judge Advocate Division is gonna walk away with a bigger pension than a man who all but gave his life fighting the Waffen SS.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

voted against "the Buffet Rule" mandating a higher top rate for the wealthy, he justified this via the usual Claghornery, he wants "to cut spending not raise taxes".
Fair enough, if the Tea Partei has deserted Scott's banner, then by Ghod it is all the more reason for no daylight to get between the Junior Senator from Massachusetts and his patrons on Wall Street.
The Moderate Republican Act is all good and fine but lets not let it interfere with the bottom line not when there are expensive television buys in the offing.
To Humble Elias though, this is just a wee bit hypocritical, because on the one hand Scott wants to "cut spending" at the same time he is actively lobbying the Pentagon for a Bird Colonel's hat and pension in the Maryland National Guard.
I'll bet if tomorrow the DoD decreed (as a fit measure to cut spending) they were gonna reduce officer's pensions 10%, Scott would fly to the nearest bank of microphones to denounce this dangerous reduction in the USA's combat readiness.
For that fact it is a short list indeed of US Senators who ever turned down a juicy pension...in fact I think it qualifies as one of the three impossible things a Druid must imagine before breakfast.

Monday, April 16, 2012

I may have indulged this one before, as I've said many many many times, "repetition is the soul of eloquence"...
Anyway, my gray hair old Irish Mother once famously observed:
"There are people who revere symbols, and then there are people who are willing to Die for Their Country, these are inevitably two completely different types of people".

She also warned me to "stay off twitter" because it was "deadly" for writer's to use such a truncated venue.
:D

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Ann Romney hasn't worked a day in her life, at least insofar as she needed a job outside the home to keep a two income family in the Middle Class and Out of Receivership.
Now that having been said, Mrs. Romney is a very nice person and I'm sure her kids were profoundly grateful she stayed at home especially with Mitt out of the House Doing Big and Important Things.
But all that only points out the nigh complete Detachment of Brand Romney from the diresome economic milieu the rest of us are slogging.
We don't have the option of a lavish lifestyle on a single income, let alone a subsistence lifestyle.
Hell, most of the "starter families" in Humble Elias' famously middle class community are struggling along with two incomes and a mere two kids.
Families are major money pits lets face it....and a personal fortune of 250 million dollars pretty much bridges that pit nicely.
That having been said the current "Rosen Affair" is a serviceable example of the sort of political jujitsu, Mitt Romney is good at...ergo twisting a quote out of context to allow him to rush onto the field waving the flag like a teachable and babbling a heartfelt defense of certain comforting cliches.
He can sometimes usurp the whole debate with this technique, he used it to solid advantage in 2002, pay heed mah frenz, pay heed.

Friday, April 13, 2012

But if you wanted North Korea to "lose face" publicly and privately communicate a pointed message as to the limits of regional and international tolerance, then the suspicion itself makes rough policy sense.

Of course the problem then becomes what does Pyongyang do in retaliation for such a provocative act?
Assuming of course they even realize their rocket was intercepted & destroyed.

How does all that impact our allies and trading partners in the region?
Test another A-Bomb maybe, make some direct provocation against South Korea?

The imponderables piles up pretty quickly under this scenario....
Thus Humble Elias comes back to the comfort and safety of Occam's Razor which pretty much dictates that North Korea has had problems with these high tech stunts before, thus the damn rocket probably few apart due to shabby workmanship.

Every day, Humble Elias strolls thru the Parking Garage of the Alewife MBTA Station past dozens of "Live Free or Die" license plates on his way to his phony baloney job in South Boston.
So he would like to take a moment to celebrate The Commonwealth of Massachusetts, which is the best Jobs Program implemented for the Benefit of New Hampshire.

We got problems with Self Loathing in the Bay State, Humble Elias standeth athwart that process and shouts "STOP!"
I mean, look at how generously we treat the jobless of the Granite State, it is a shining example of charity and kindness to the rest of the Federal Union.

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Did anyone out there really think that Rick Santorum could beat down Romney and seize the GOP nomination for President in 2012?
The fact that Santorum lasted as long as he did is mostly a tribute to the almighty political clumsiness of the Romney campaign that was ultimately forced to buy whole primaries at mark up prices to put down the yappy former Senator from Pennsylvania.
Still and all that, Rick ran a marginally better race than all the other Tea Partei simulacra (Bachmann, Cain & Perry) combined. In some respects though, Santorum simply got lucky and yesterday his luck finally ran out.
Likely he will try again in 2016, assuming Romney can't win the Big One in November, but I don't see Santorum moving up the rankings any between now and then. His followers have a certain power at the local level given the right conditions but they are cursed with outre leadership cadres and this year in particular they've careened from primary setback to outright defeat.
Are they even gonna be a factor in 2016?
Who knows...
Rick himself hails from a State that has already rejected him once and was poised to do so again in a GOP primary, it is doubtful he could have delivered it in a General Election.
That being the math, his Vice Presidential hopes seem pretty dim, unless of course, Romney fumbles the ball again which is a definite possibility.
Anyway, running with Romney this fall would complicate things for Santorum, making nicey nice with moderates has never been his forte, explosive gaffes and rabble rousing are his key strengths now and forever amen.
No he will step back, bid up his endorsement and hope for the sort of electoral catastrophe that'll deliver leadership into his fevered hands.
All the serious would be dictators have subsisted on the same hopes...In Rick's case though they are tattered and forlorn hopes indeed
Count on it we will hear from him again, Santorum is like Dr. Fu Manchu, impervious to setback, incapable of success, resistant to tranquility.

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

It can't be easy to be Jeff Jacoby.
I mean he is the self proclaimed conservative opposition pundit at the allegedly liberal Boston Globe.
Everyone else in freeperdom is cashing in aggressively with book deals, cush radio chat show gigs, Fox News talking head welfare...and yet Jeff continues to tough it out down on Morrissey Boulevard standing his solitary watch.
And whenever the "SS Conservatism" hits an iceberg, Jeff is the first one to mount up to the boat deck with a bright shiny tin pail in hand, brain sparkling and freshly washed eager to form a bucket brigade on yet another sinking hulk.Take today for instance, Jeff proclaims in tones pontifical that the Augusta National should suffer no boycot or criticism for its archaic policy of excluding women.
This is the same lame ass golf club that once excluded Jews and only allowed African Americans to join in 1990.
I wonder if they let Jewish Journalists in?
Jeff should really check on this.
Well this is Jeff Jacoby we are talking about, if push came to shove he'd likely insist publicly that the Augusta National literally has a right to exclude Jews.
He has a weird tendency to shot himself in the foot repeatedly to prove his own point...It's be admirable if it was not so laughable.

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

So it would appear she will at least have cash-parity with Former State Senator Scott Brown come the general election, assuming of course that Citizen Warren is in fact the democratic nominee for the US Senate.
per Joan Vennochi, Warren may not have "a clue", but Professor sure does know how to fundraise like a sumbitch.
Well to my mind all this points to, is that this is gonna be a very hard frought campaign that will likely go down to the wire come election night. A lot will turn on organizational strength, advertising, "message", debate performance, the innate qualities of the candidates and it will be a precinct by precinct fight, house to house quite literally.
I think this one is gonna eclipse Weld-Kerry quite frankly.
No one is gonna win this in a walk...Best to sharpen your assegai & buff up shield, yer gonna need them.

Monday, April 09, 2012

that the Tea Partei of Indiana wants desperately to "primary" Senator Richard Lugar out of existence.Richard Lugar, a man who was once known as "Richard Nixon's favorite Senator" and one of the few GOP Foreign Policy experts of the realist school.
MiGhod if Richard Lugar isn't enough of a vengeful beast for the Tea Partei, then there is something seriously wrong with the GOP.
And it is vengeance that is the key term here no doubt about it, most of the Tea Partei's membership is animated by a frantic desire to get at Barack Obama and punch out as many liberals as they can on their way there.
There is nothing rational about any of it, despite all their holier than thou rubbish about balanced budgets and small government, they are the Vengeance Party Pure and Simple.
The reasons for this are complex, U.S. liberalism despite it's program of uplift & justice, tends to steel individual liberals for the inevitability of setback, compromise and woe.
This is why liberals make for lousy AM Radio Chat Show Tyrants, we don't know how to demagogue in a way that exports positive action to the voting booth.
Movement conservatism in the USA on the other actively attempts to keep individual conservatives in a pre-adolescent state of hyperindulgence, and when reality busts in on that mythopoetic bubble they live in the cries go up for blood and dynamite.
That is the Tea Party in a nutshell, ready to shoot off it's own foot or form a torch wielding mob in pursuit of that old groaner, Richard Lugar, anything to get back to the Land of Oz.

Ah but according to those fervent social engineers the Gun Owners Action League and the NRA, an armed society is a crime free society.
Yet, the gun population of this country exceeds the human populations by tens of millions of firearms, according to the 2nd Amendment worshippers out there the Oakland Massacre should have never occurred.
But it did.
You don't suppose there is a flaw in their logic do you?

Wednesday, April 04, 2012

Former State Treasurer and Independent Gubernatorial Candidate Tim Cahill has been indicted for misuse of public funds relating to a lottery tv commercial campaign that went all up suspiciously late in the 2010 general election.
Honestly, what is it in the water at the Treasurer's Office that makes people think they can get away with rubbish like this?

All I know about Tim Cahill is that then and now, he is one of those Massachusetts Pols whom you cannot tell a thing, he knows everthing.
Now look at him, pleading Not Guilty.
A series of very bad decisions in careful sequence are what brought Cahill to this pretty pass, he wanted to challenge Deval Patrick in the 2010 gubernatorial primary but lacking support for that idea he broke ranks & ran as a independent on the somewhat dubious notion that as a conservative democrat he could deny Patrick re-election.
Now for a few weeks in the summer of 2010 Cahill was riding high in a few polls but he was short on money, volunteers and luck. The RGA carved him up hard in a TV commercial campaign against which Cahill had no defense lacking money for big ad buys.
By the end of the summer he was mired in the low teens & sucking votes away from Baker, in other words Cahill had accomplished the exact opposite of everthing he set out to do.
By the time of the sad and pathetic "Loscocco Affair" destiny had deserted the State Treasurer...everyone else knew except him though.
Then came those lottery adverts thence to the hills of Waterloo.
And all of this because Tim Cahill was too impatient to wait until 2014 to try his luck as a Gubernatorial candidate.
If the God Damned Fool had just bided his time, run for re-election as Treasurer kept his pie hole shut he'd likely be an early front runner for 2014 given Tim Murray's current political woes.
But oh no, you can't tell Tim Cahill a thing!
There is a lugubrious tendency among the punditariat, to which even Humble Elias is prey, to chalk up the fall of a politician to Shakespearean hubris.
Sadly, Tim Cahill doesn't rise to that level of tragedy.
He is rather a monument to the notion that there is an obvious self inflicted cost to not taking Governor Patrick at his word when he says he will serve out his term and run for re-election then serve that term out.

Monday, April 02, 2012

current approval rating per the Boston Sunday Globe stands at about sixty two percent, which is about all the rebound one can ever expect from a politician who wracked up a heartbreaking loss to Scott Brown in 2010.
So I guarantee you, the AG is thinking hard about running for Governor in 2014.
Of course you have to factor in the fact that the Commonwealth's AG makes more enemies in a day than most of us do in a lifetime.
I mean just ask Governor Scott Harshbarger if you don't believe me.
And then there is our old friend the Glass Ceiling in State Politics still thick and defiant as of 4-2-2012, 12:32PM EST.
Which raises questions if Citizen Warren carries the day this fall, does that benefit or degrade Coakley's chances at the corner office?
Does the glass ceiling migrate to the State House and make a last stand over the governorship?
For that fact, are there any GOP women out there interested in a 2014 Governor's race?
Well its far off fight to be sure, but that sixty two percent is a powerful temptation that few politicians male or female can pass up...

Sunday, April 01, 2012

On the front page of today's Globe, there is a poll indicating that the still hypothetical Brown-Warren match is all tied up with both candidates seemingly rock solid with their respective bases.
Then there is some palaver assessing their particular strengths and some good news as to Martha Coakley & Deval Patrick's favorability ratings.

All well and good, Humble Elias thinks this is gonna be a close race when push comes to shove.

And then on the Op Ed Page Joanie Vennochi screams "GAME OVER" for Citizen Warren and all but predicts victory for Colonel Brown.
It seems less a column in the accepted sense of the term an more a sequenced collection of blast faxes from the perpetually perturbed Eric Fehrnstrom.

You can read it all here for just .99 USD.
Said column though, does contain this howler:
"Warren is not known as the candidate who reaches out to people.
Instead she is known as the candidate preferred by Barbra Streisand, Cher
And the local liberal elite."
Wow Joanie, Channel Howie Carr much?
Situations like this make me dial back to first principles, ergo we know who Joan Vennochi hates, but we still do not know what the Globe columnist believes in...if anything.
To believe the Globe's front page Citizen Warren is glad handing every coffee shop, bar and block party from Peru to Mashpee.
Meanwhile Joan Vennochi's rebuttal, reads like a Allen Drury novel, shrill and vindictive.
Spiteful Joanie is back it seems.
And I for one, could not be happier.